So I haven't had wifi for a while, and a lot has happened!! I still have tons of Nabiac photos to share, as well as a few from my weird last week in Byron. I'm currently exhausted and in a five hour bus ride to Sunshine Coast, so I'm just going to give brief high/lowlights.
Day 1: arrived at 9pm, met all the 9 other people in my teepee, and was dragged out to a dance bar. The people I was with were mainly English and German, and the guys were overly touchy and flirty, and the girls were pathetically into it. I was welcomed in, until I didn't flirt back and then was ignored. Fun dancing, however. Went back and crashes after 2am. Ps. Fun fact, they don't sell shots in NsW. It's illegal! And their drinks are hella expensive and weak.
Inside the teepee!
Day 2: walked down the beach a bit, explored the town, and discovered delicious cheap foods from Aldi. Met a guy from Indiana who used to work on the same street, in the same parking lot as me (we knew three of the same people as well. Totally tiny world.), watched an open mic night with him, and played a trivia game with the whole hostel on a team with some of the best people I met, and won a little day trip to Nimbin.
Stunning beaches.
Day 3: last night in the teepee, hung out outside with my friends Olivier and Louise (French and English couple. Super hilarious) playing drinking games, guessing truths and lies about ourselves. Super fun, lovely people. That was the evening, and during the day I took the Nimbin trip, and hung out with a girl I met from Manchester. We drove on this cool hippy bus with a rad South African tour guide. Nimbin is just a stoner town now, overlooked by the police. As soon as you get off the bus people are offering you weed cookies and magic mushrooms. Everything is weed related. Super weird, and everyone is suuuuuuper out of it. Then the bus went to a campground and we made a massive BBQ, stopped at a waterfall, and then came back. It was interesting, and meh.
A little walk the tour took us on.
Day 4: found a free tent to stay in, in the middle of the campground attached to the hostel. Tiny, with broken zippers. The proceeded to go to a travel agent and book my greyhound to Cairns (I can hop off and on whenever for 90 days in one direction) as well as a three day/two night camping trip on Fraser Island where you ride around in 4x4's cause there are no roads (I get to drive, fuck yes) and swim in drinkable lakes and chill with dingos while watching tiger sharks breed off the coast. I also booked a two day/two night sailing trip in the Whitsundays where you sleep on the boat, snorkel in several locations in the Great Barrier Reef, and go to the finest/whitest sand beach there is: White Haven. And I also have a little tour of Magnetic island as well, and a three day/two night kayak trip that they threw in for free, but unfortunately I think is booked when I'm in that particular town so I may sell it. But yeah! Fuck yeah, trips! Anyway, after booking, I think I went to the beach for a bit. Then I met back up with my travel adviser who was a sweet girl from Sweden who said I was her soulmate. I went to her hostel and played Kings with her, a guy from Denmark, a girl from Canada, two from Finland, and an English guy. From there we went out, and the Swedish girl kept buying me drinks as we were on the dance floor. Drinks in. Oz seriously blow. I've been here a month and am yet to gain anything from the booze other than an immediate headache or heartburn. Nice night though.
Day 5: I believe this day I walked really far down the beach toward the mountains. And after a while, there were less and less people, but also less and less clothes. I found myself in a nude beach on accident, with about 5 older men walking around. Two of which stopped me to talk. One seemed creepy and I was obviously uncomfortable, so he covered himself up. Another guy walked up and chatted as well, a friendly enough guy, then they let and I sat to have my lunch, and the friendly guy walked back over. Only this time, I was sitting and he was standing. Not covering himself. Facing me, feet spread, pelvis aimed directly at me, hands on hips. He was cheerful and harmless, but it was fucking weird. That night I woke at 1am to my feet sopping wet from the rain. Tent had flooded. Had to move all my stuff, use my towel, booklet and a few sweaters to sop it up, change clothes, and cut the strings and tags off the inside of the tent, cut holes into the door and tarp, and had to tie them together to keep the tent from getting anymore water. Everything was sopping in the morning, so I sucked it up and did the $4 a load laundry (don't you ever complain to me about your $2 loads again, it's $7 a load if I had gone into town) spending $12 in total to dry everything. The rest of the nights were much drier, but much harder on my body.
The aftermath of my finagling through the storm.
Day 6: rain all day. Drew in a coffeehouse, left to eat my usual cheap tuna and baked beans, and went to a different coffeehouse and got the cheapest thing on the menu so I could draw more. A couple stopped me on the street and talked about my drawing, left, and then came back and ended up sitting next to me. They were probably in their 60's and from southern England. We chatted a bit, and they felt very homey. Like surrogate parents or something. It was a brief but lovely interaction. When they left they took my picture with my drawing, gave me their card and said to stay with them if I'm ever in s. England, and blew me a kiss goodbye. When I went to pay for my little bowl of fries, they had done it for me. A little brightener to my damp few days.
Day 7: Drew more, all day. Family next to me didn't eat the fries they ordered, so I got them for free! Two days of fries in a row, not bad. Then I left and walked to the beach for the final time, and watched a dusty sunset over the mountains, with silhouetted surfers in the water. I looked the other direction, and pitch black out at 6:30 pm realized it was the lunar eclipse! So I walked over to the other side of the beach and sat down to watch. I could hear a Spanish trumpeter in the distance behind me, a white reggae boy with his drum circle next to me, and traveling fire dancers and swallowers were next to me. It was pretty cool.
All these days are mixed up and poorly written, but it's the basic gist. Will fix it up later when I'm not on a crammed bus next to a pretty Italian. Love y'all. Ciao.
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